Japan’s tax authorities have potentially boosted the appetite for lower-priced contemporary art by adopting a policy that accepts certain works as depreciable assets. According to a blog post written by Makoto Shimada, the professor of law at Tokyo’s Keio University, works bought from January 2015 for less than ¥1m (around $8,000) may be treated as an asset, the value of which is reduced over time under the National Tax Agency’s amended corporate and income tax law interpretive regulations. Works deemed “irreplaceable”—such as antiques, relics and ancient manuscripts—are excluded, but art bought for a public lobby, for example, would be considered even if it initially cost more than ¥1m.
